Ground-penetrating radar survey at the pyramid complex of Senwosret III at Dahshur,Egypt, 2008: search for the lost boat of a Pharaoh

A survey at Dahshur, Egypt, employed 3-D ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in an attempt to locate pharaonic boat burials at the pyramid complex of King Senwosret III. In AD 1894, the original excavator reported finding five or six boats; however, only four “Dahshur boats” are known in museum collections today. The suspected site of the lost boat burial(s) lay beneath the large 1894 excavation backfill pile. The steep topography of the backfill required nonstandard GPR processing methods to accurately image the subsurface of the site. Although revealing no definitive traces of any remaining boats, imaging results did indicate discernible strata associated with the original naturally deposited surface, an excavated boat pit, debris and fill associated with either its original creation or its excavation, and deeper, presently unidentified archaeological remains.     

Public archaeology at Baynard-Zion: bringing life back to an antebellum cemetery

ABSTRACT

Heritage tourism is a driving economic force in much of the coastal southeastern United States, including on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, one of the most popular destinations for vacationers in the country. Working with local community members in developing a diverse and multipronged public archaeology program, we helped facilitate research and develop programing at the Baynard Mausoleum and Zion Chapel of Ease and Cemetery (Baynard-Zion). Built and used during the late eighteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries, Baynard-Zion includes some of the oldest marked graves on the island as well as its oldest standing architecture. Using a constellation of techniques, including geophysical surveys, genetic testing of human remains, and limited excavations, research conducted at Baynard-Zion provides an opportunity to enhance public perception and understanding of pivotal historic events and people on the island while also assisting in development plans that promote heritage tourism.     

Prophecy and Powerlessness

ABSTRACT

This essay attempts to answer questions faced by social movements about whether “prophetic” struggles for justice are necessarily destined either for failure (if they do not win power) or corruption (if they do). It draws on a neglected work of Martin Buber, Der Gesalbte [The Anointed], in which Buber presents the oral core of the Book of Samuel as originating with the school of the prophet Nathan, for lessons about the promise and danger of attempting to combine prophecy and power.     

‘Those same cursed Saracens’: Charlemagne's campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula as religious warfare

While it is well known that many of Charlemagne's wars had a strong religious element, Frankish campaigns against the Muslims of Spain in his reign have generally been understood as secular exercises in power politics. This article presents evidence contemporary to Charlemagne's reign to argue against this, using a diverse range of sources to conclude that many observers of the Frankish invasions of the Iberian Peninsula understood them as religious wars aimed both at the defending of Christian communities in Francia and protecting and expanding the worship of Christianity in Spain. Further, although the prosecution of these wars was politically opportunistic, the sources suggest that Charlemagne and his court encouraged interpretations of these campaigns in religious terms and that they might be considered examples of religious war.     

Prehistoric demography of North America inferred from radiocarbon data

Large radiocarbon datasets are increasingly used as a paleodemographic proxy, although potential sources of bias in such records are poorly understood. In this paper, we use more than 25,000 radiocarbon dates extracted from the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) to estimate long-term population trends in North America, while critically examining biases in such records. The frequency distribution of CARD dates shows a positive curvilinear pattern, such that older dates exist in lower numbers than more recent dates, which in part reflects the removal of cultural carbon from the archaeological record through processes such as erosion and dissolution. The average annual growth rate of radiocarbon dates in CARD was calculated and used to derive estimates of the population of North America from the Paleo-Indian to the Contact Periods. While taphonomic bias has likely affected the CARD data, other factors, such as the overrepresentation of Paleo-Indian and Archaic radiocarbon dates, may have offset any bias due to taphonomy. A quantitative reconstruction of Native American population shows that population increased rapidly around 2000 cal yr BP, reaching a maximum of 2,500,000 people by ～AD 1150. From this time until European contact, the population declined, possibly due to the effects of increased sedentism and population density.